We were settin' there an' smokin' of our pipes, discussin' things, <br />Like licker, votes for wimmin, an' the totterin'thrones o' kings, <br />When he ups an' strokes his whiskers with his hand an' says t'me: <br />'Changin' laws an' legislatures ain't, as fur as I can see, <br />Goin' to make this world much better, unless somehow we can <br />Find a way to make a better an' a finer sort o' man. <br /> <br />'The trouble ain't with statutes or with systems—not at all; <br />It's with humans jest like we air an' their petty ways an' small. <br />We could stop our writin' law-books an' our regulatin' rules <br />If a better sort of manhood was the product of our schools. <br />For the things that we air needin' ain't no writin' from a pen <br />Or bigger guns to shoot with, but a bigger type of men. <br /> <br />'I reckon all these problems air jest ornery like the weeds. <br />They grow in soil that oughta nourish only decent deeds, <br />An' they waste our time an' fret us when, if we were thinkin' straight <br />An' livin' right, they wouldn't be so terrible an' great. <br />A good horse needs no snaffle, an' a good man, I opine, <br />Doesn't need a law to check him or to force him into line. <br /> <br />'If we ever start in teachin' to our children, year by year, <br />How to live with one another, there'll be less o' trouble here. <br />If we'd teach 'em how to neighbor an' to walk in honor's ways, <br />We could settle every problem which the mind o' man can raise. <br />What we're needin' isn't systems or some regulatin' plan, <br />But a bigger an' a finer an' a truer type o' man.'<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-we-need-2/
